Orissa mishap. Completely incomprehensible priorities

I am not a religious person. So whatever I am about to say, is absolutely unbiased. I had a conversation with a friend some time back. He started talking about Orissa. Naturally, from his concerned tone, I was expecting him to talk about the mishaps and the killings there. But what seemed to have bothered him was the “unjust way they chose to convert people to Christianity”. Like I say I am not religious so I have nothing for or against that area. But I definitely was concerned about human lives. And so when human life was at stake, I cannot understand how anyone could be concerned about religious problems.

On one hand there was the problem of religion and on the other hand people were dying. But when I saw my friend was worried about religious conversions more than human loss, and that too the fact that he felt the latter justified because it was a result of the former, was something that really, really got me upset. Why! How can people be so blind? Why their priorities were sorted so, so unreasonably! Why do they forget they are human beings before anything else? That these people who converted or died or killed were all first humans before they were Christians or Hindus or Muslims!

My friend proceeded – “I don’t have a problem if they chose to convert people through just and sound means, like talking about it. But then offering a poor person bread in exchange of his religious conversion was something really wrong.”
I again had nothing for or against it. It was not my area of concern. However I did point out that to that poor person, bread was more important than religion. That religion was something people held in their minds, it didn’t matter how many conversions you went through if your mind was firmly rooted in one line of belief.

As long as we have young people worrying about a religion spreading or eradicating more than humans dying, I really, really do not have much hope for our country or our people. I cant help wishing there was a complete world rebirth and with it, only humans were born and prospered and nothing including religion, caste, creed, race, color or countries that separated one human from another came to being.

Resigning as a daily blogger.

I have sad news to make. I am resigning. As a daily blogger. All attempts to write daily have been failing. Cause 1, I run out of ideas, 2, I had a weird realization that writing when you don’t have ideas could be bad, and 3, I cant keep track of time – I forget that daily is daily and not 3 days later.

There is a fourth very important reason. I started to churn out absolute rot. Look for instance what I thought I will paste here one day –

“Some people think writing is an easy job. That all you need to do is to open a Word document and stare at it and words would fall down from the sky, well, or the roof. And when that does not happen they look up at the roof and decide its having a bad day. Not your fault, cause you did your job. You were the Good Samaritan who took the trouble of staring into a blank page. What could you do if creativity didn’t find its way from all the way above to come and hit your head?

Some people became some more people today. I joined them.”

Seeing that was what made me reach for my retirement papers. Yes yes, there is probably an age limit for daily bloggers. Those old bloggers who write daily, am sure are working illegally. Moreover I started showing womanly qualities – the biggest being I detest being called a woman, I prefer girl. I know at 25, a girl is not a girl but a girl is a [gulp] woman. Britney spears when she sang she was not a girl or a woman was not 25, she was 18. And when a woman starts being a woman, you have to quit. Cause your daily entries will have an inclination to be hmm, womanly.

But not to worry, it is just a phase. Cause women, I have noticed, exist. This wouldn’t have been possible if every time they heard someone call them women they went to jump into the sea and say goodbye cruel world. They get over the phase and continue to live, probably with heavily broken hearts. I mean they completely take it to their head the rest of the world is going to look at their face and say “She’s a woman”. Although nobody knows why that needs pointing out, there you have it – the world will always tell you things you don’t need telling. If it weren’t for them, I’d have grown up into a 100 year old girl in a matter of years. Hmph.

So, children, readers, audience, adieu.
Disclaimer: this is only official, and like every official deal, it has every intention of being unofficial and I’ll join them illegal old writers.

Short blog posts winning over long! Hmph!

I have found out something. People like to read short stuff more than long stuff. Analysis formed on the basis of studying a typical human’s behavioral patterns on reaching blogs. Typical human was me.

Come a short entry and my eyes welcome them with a smile. My eyes also read them with a smile. Unless the short entry decides it had seen enough smiles for a day and it was time to turn ugly. “I will teach that smiling idiot a lesson. I will be a completely nonsensical post. All words, jumble up and all sense, turn away and run, that’s an order!”

I learn my lesson and move with my eyes to other longer blogs. But eyes are in the habit of wrinkling and mouth in the habit of yawning on seeing lengthy posts. With a bored expression I start and after line 1, if unlike the shorter entries that has a thing against smiling readers it doesn’t turn ugly, I transmogrify into a happy reader. My downturned lips curl up, my eyeballs bulge out, my cheek bones dance.

Prejudice. Unjustified prejudice against length. Discrimination. I call it unfair. For though, I showed signs of depreciating longer entries, I am in the habit of churning them out. Study made on attracting readers to longer entries suggests making beginnings as juicy, err interesting as possible. Trap them. Put them in a situation where they can’t rest without knowing what happened to the remaining paragraphs – did they stay as paragraphs, did they look cheery or sad, did they jump around and sing. Make them ask all these questions. Michael Corleone if he was here would have smiled to say “Give them a post they cant refuse”.

Studies were good. But to study effect of first paragraphs, the typical human I chose may not be sufficient. So I invite volunteers to offer themselves as test materials. There wont be any tying up or gluing up to chairs as some competitor analyzers make their workers, err readers, do. There wont be nasty long blogs thrown at. All you have to do is sit idly, enjoy yourselves reading what you have always loved to read – my blog.

The art of talking

Yesterday a chat friend (CF) I have chatted with for 2 or 3 years now made a call. This is how the conversation started:
CF: Hello
Silence.
CF: Hello
Silence
CF: Hello
Me: Gum – attempt at hello

So I am not a talks-person, I am more of a write-type person – grammatically horrendous statement. But years of saying “gum” to people had convinced me that it will do the world and me a lot of good if I just stuck to typing my hellos. Leave the talking to the rest of the world.

But interestingly and surprisingly, my critics had to wonder, if in the act of writing me off as far as the spoken language was concerned, they had been too rash. For speak I did. CF though had to employ his ears to the best of their purpose, soon found it hard to get a word out in between the outflow of words proceeding from Ms Gum-Greeter. Any audience, if present, would have suspected an impersonation taking effect.

After the call though, strong analysis of the matter revealed the following
1. Talking was an art no doubt, but it was not always an impossible feat. The people who said gum in place of hello and gulp in place of howdy did so only to people who brought with them an image of human biters. This is what led to the foundation of what is popularly known as a comfort zone. Some people fell into this zone with the grace of a, err, graceful faller. Point is it is easy to talk to some people even if it is for the first time. Whereas with certain others, no matter how much you talk, you still find the same burning desire to jump up and run for the nearest exit. Everybody has their comfort zones. For me, if Scooby Doo fell into the comfort zone, for Watson it was probably Holmes.

2. And the strain is off once you have exposed your innermost identity. In the words of Ms CC, “You know it’s a relief when a person completely knows what kind of an utter idiot you are and still like you. I mean you don’t have to worry about losing anything anymore”

So that’s that. Effective from yesterday I have resigned from the anti-verbalization club.

The quotes tag

Disclaimer: I did this in a hurry so not sure if I missed a lot too many things!
My third tag. Mathew, keeper of a hilarious blog has tagged me. May his hilarity grow ten fold. This is the tag: “Jot down 5 of your favorite quotes from the various books you’ve read. If you don’t have the books with you now, googling (Wikiquotes and the like) can be used to find them. Tag five people and acknowledge the person who tagged you.”

My quotes, I have loved a lot many but don’t have the habit of keeping them in mind.
(Short while later): I ended up wikiquoting and came up with a lot too many quotes I had long forgotten. Now compressing them into 6, (I have already decided to do tag+1) could be a problem. Quotes have a thing against compression.

So, not necessarily the best I remember, but the first few I found good enough, and all of them essentially coming into the list, cause they make little or no sense. I have decided to follow my idol, Wodehouse. His quote on writers being this, and this does not count to be in my tag cause it is from no book.
“I believe there are two ways of writing novels. One is mine, making a sort of musical comedy without music and ignoring real life altogether; the other is going right deep down into life and not caring a damn.”

Now the tag.

1. From Hard News, by Jeffrey Deaver

(3-year old)Courtney: “I want juice”
Rune: “Say please”
(3-year old)Courtney: “I want please”

Well one more from Hard News.

“This business about fairy tales having happy endings – that was bull shit. Sometimes people melt. People go away. People die. And we’re left with stories and memories, which, if we’re lucky, will be good stories and good memories and then we get on with our life.”

2. From Bridget Jones’s diary, by Helen Fielding

Narrated by Bridget: I got in the lift to go out for a sandwich and found Daniel in there with Simon from Marketing, talking about footballers being arrested for throwing matches. “Have you heard about this, Bridget?” said Daniel.
“Oh yes,” I lied, groping for an opinion. “Actually, I think it’s all rather petty. I know it’s a thuggish way to behave, but as long as they didn’t actually set light to anyone I don’t see what all the fuss is about”

3. From To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee

Scout: “Naw, Jem, I think there’s just one kind of folks. Folks.

Jem: “Scout, I think I’m beginning to understand something. I think I am beginning to understand why Boo Radley’s stayed shut up in the house all this time… it’s because he wants to stay inside”

4. From Adevntures of Sally, by P G Wodehouse

“And she’s got brains enough for two, which is the exact quantity the girl who marries you will need.”

5. From Right Ho Jeeves

“I’ve been through hell, Bertie.”
“Through where?”
“Hell.”
“Oh, hell? And what took you there?””

6. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J K Rowling

Hermione Granger: “I hope you’re pleased with yourselves. We could all have been killed — or worse, expelled.”
Ron: “She needs to sort out her priorities!”

So this one is in addition. I am not sure if it is in a book, I think it is from a television series based on the Wodehouse books.

Bingo: “Bertie!”
Bertie: “Bingo!”
Bingo: “She telephoned!”
Bertie: “She telephoned you, eh? That’s good, shows some friendly spirit.”
Bingo: “Well, she didn’t phone me exactly; when I picked up the phone, I was standing beside it.”
Bertie: “What’d she say?”
Bingo: “She said, “Let me talk to someone with a brain.” “
Bertie: “Ah.”
Bingo: “But it was friendly, the way she said it.”

I have to pass on.

1. Nithin. He is already due to finish my previous tag
2. Srijith. Bro, here is a job for you.
3. Preeti Sharma. I know its going to be hilarious
4. Dhanya. Not sure if someone has alreay tagged you with this, but seeing a tad too bit of inactivity in your blog.
5. Usha. Again not sure if someone has tagged her already
6. Nikhil. Ditto.

A wedding, hmm, again

Egad third in the wedding series, I realize – this being first and this, second. So proceeding with the typical beginning – I have been to a wedding the other day. Being a hartal[strike], I walked. Oh I had company. In the form of an 80 year old. My Grandma. Now that I remember, she was walking too as a matter of fact. And since the two of us were headed for the same destination, you know the wedding place, we decided to walk together. And thus started our 3-hour long vacation trip.

It was supposed to be a celebrity packed wedding. And I estimated right. Of course I had a good heart and people with good hearts, went for weddings. Volunteering to accompany the poor old girl was of course my primary intention…. BEEP! [Lie detected]. I should change blogs, this one keeps shouting back! Can’t a girl have some solitude around here?

Going back to my story, err forget about primary intentions. Lets talk about other things. Ok, so the prospect of watching a few popular people may have interested me a little [BEEP], ok a lot [BEEP], ok it was all I had in mind! There, you happy?!
I wasn’t let down there. Celebrities came in the form of the groom himself for one. Vidhu Prathap. His singer friends made the guests. I was about to witness a new addition in my daily activities. Seeing Yesudas. For the second consecutive day, the great man was standing inches before me. His son another inch away. Vineeth, the actor who danced was closer. Unfortunately celebrities suffered a major drawback. They failed to notice extremely important human entities, namely me.

So all the ogl… I mean observations had to be one-way transactions. Oh by the way, other things too happened there, you know, like a wedding for one. Luckily, they make it easy to identify bride and groom in a wedding. Like this Mallu blogger wrote, if you saw a lot of gold that moves, don’t bother to find a human behind it, be assured it’s your bride. Groom is not always easy to find especially when he wasn’t a Vidhu Prathap. You have to depend on your intuitional skills there. If you are in the habit of making sixth sense predictions come true, that will come handy here.

And then of course photos. A fellow blogger had done a good job of it the other day. So am not going into details here. Except, us good-looking guests have a tough time avoiding these guys [BEEP] [BEEP] [BEEP]. Alright, alright!!!

A place where a queue system or any other system except mob stampede has failed is what you call a “Kalayana Sadhya” [wedding banquet] in Malayalam. You push a few here, you stamp a few there, you somersault over a few others, and you are a winner. I hear underground-entrances and helicopter dropping are expected to evolve as the new strategies for Sadya survival. Whew, no beeps! Maybe it is true!

And like yet another blogger had mentioned [seems weddings are the in things], a wedding is always a place to perfect your silly face expressions. You will meet hundred and one people you have no clue of and be asked to remember who they were. Of course, you saw them just a couple of decades back when you were a toddler. There is no question of forgetting.

But what am I complaining for. Yesudas, Chithra [that was another dream come true], the others, the 2 bolis (yellow things they serve for Sadya) made my day. And maybe one day, 20 years later I will go ask a girl if she remembered me picking her up as a baby, and she will groan and emit a 100-watt smile and then I will hear all those hundred and one clueless people grab my conscience to say “Now you know!”

Seeing Yesudas, living unlived times

Long nourished dream came true today. I saw K J Yesudas in person. It was a function to pay homage to the late singer Shantha P Nair. Yesudas had given a neat little speech and after few other speeches there was this wonderful documentary about the great lady. Really enjoyed listening to her speak about the old times and some of those old songs which I have heard my Mom sing often. Though it was an era totally faded in memories of the older generation, I found myself missing those times. It is a strange feeling that you get, like when you watch really old movies and imagine yourself in those times (I like to imagine myself in a theatre in those times watching that movie and the people and the world around me, rather than being inside the movie). Hard to put in words, cause it is not just nostalgia, its losing something you never knew the taste of, and something that brings with it the smell and the air of yester years. Maybe it is at times like this that you might want to imagine about multiple births and having spent one all that time ago.

My greatest moment was when I was standing close to Yesudas and as he passed, stopped to talk with a few around him. I had this feeling of something cool poured on the top of my head, a waterfall that ran within me. No, not blood! This was a gust of outright admiration and respect, absolutely liquefied by some strange force as I watched the great man in front of me. And, for a moment, the great man himself seemed to have sensed that coolness coming out from the aforesaid human-waterfall, for he found the source and presented her a mesmerizing, going-to-be-cherished-forever smile.

Help Ms Cris: Starring Cris, fancy pal Mr Jim

Aaachoo. I hab goth Ze-Gold.

Aa Aa Aaachoo. I have got it. The dangerous Ze-Gold. Predicting the recent future to be drowned mercilessly in fever. Cant believe less than 24 hours ago, I was a healthy human. Health seems like an unattainable state. Maybe there is something like that somewhere in this world. Maybe in Neptune. I have decided to start a quest to discover it. Hmm but do I really want it?

For those rare species who are unfamiliar with this terminology, let me explain the symptoms. So when you get it you can call it affectionately “oh dear unhealth”. It comes with a lot of smoke that it generously pours over your eyes, a lot of bad taste for your tongue, an excessive lot of liquid for your nose. See, an outpour of gifts and how ungrateful are we humans! Want it or not, it is all going to be yours one hundred percent. And what do we do? Curse, crib and collaborate (ok that doesn’t make sense, but I had to get a c-word there, you know, to rhyme.)

There are peace lovers in this world who are cruelly cast off as lazy-bones. All those poor souls want is not disturb the air around them by attempting any kind of movement. Let all the nitrogen and oxygen move in peace, why scare them? And for that, just for that, they have to settle doing nothing all day. We, ahem, I mean the peace lovers are in favor of Ze-Gold. They welcome it, they caress it, they nurse it and they keep it safe. They even refuse to extravagantly spend money on them murderer medicines.

Then there is another category that swears and mourns and kills the poor Ze-Gold. Those strange incomprehensible creatures called mature adults.

Either way, doctors think it disappears in a matter of days. Hmm doctors, what do they know! Ze-Gold is tricky. In fact it is there all the time hiding behind emm, err… curtains! Oh yes, curtains! Quietly, soundlessly, lurking. And when you are not looking, it springs upon you from behind, cover your eyes and says “Buhahah guess who!”

But as a kind-hearted human being I realize that health cannot exist independently. It needs some human to cling on to. Parasites, that’s what they are. For the sake of poor dear lonely health, I, Ms Cris have taken, though sadly, a fully grown pill called sinarest. Ze-Gold and Health. Have to lose one to keep the other. And though Ze-Gold is a friendly fellow, I think it will do fine behind the curtains. You see they are not parasites. Only problem is I will lose my lovely voice, which has the habit of losing all loveliness when it harbors that parasite called health. Which happens 360 days a year. No offense, I like health. Just like to take little vacations to be by myself sometimes; parasiteless you know. Not the other way around.

Obviously Ze-Gold, also comes with a character-trait. Exaggeration. No medicine is discovered as of now (for this last trait). Psst: Secret, I have no intention to take any, that being the key strength of all bloggers! Aaachoo!

Kerala Blog camp – Alleppey, to go or not to go?

Purpose of this post: Personal reasons jotted below. Plus advertisement for the blog camp happening in Kerala. Which, according to time statistics might be a slightlyyyyy late initiative. Nevertheless, my contribution – the link to the blog camp site.

Current Confusion troubling mind taken from an email to a friend.

“Blog camp happening in Kerala on 16th. I never gave it a thought cause knew Amma wont let me go – its in Allepey. But then Acha making a trip in that direction this weekend, so got a ligghttttt green signal from Amma, which before fading I ran to tell the blog camp baaravaahikal (pioneers) to confirm my presence. Now confused again. One major reason, Acha will come back 15th. Which leaves Amma and me alone in Aleppey. And they wont let Amma in the houseboat so she has no place to go. Even if they do, Amma’s green is now fully turning red! Her imagination started working full scale and coming up with bomb blasts and drowning boats!

Yours truly is of course not majorly affected by such wild thoughts (though she imagines the boat flying up into the sky in the “bomb” blast and staying atop a huge pile of water which for some reason forgot all about gravity and refuses to fall back!). Anyway, the real confusion came when I went through the list and saw just 5 humans, err I mean women in the more than 100 list. As it is, I am not talkative. But I could atleast pave my way through the female category, which if so short and seemingly utterly sophisticated, could pose real huge problems. Me drowned in a bunch of 100 strangers (I had to use drown when talking about mid-water traveling)! I know 2 or 3 through their blogs. But thats it! So confused. Have 3 nights to decide! And somehow I know I will be in the same confused state till 15th!!!

And work. This thalaya divasa work will never go away from our thalaas Rosie girl!”

Reason for posting it here: Something seems wrong when a daily blogger doesn’t blog daily. Third day without a post might take away the daily blogger label I gave to myself (and no one else agrees with). Reason 2, it is easy to copy paste. Reason 3, I liked it, especially the 5 human error.